NTT DoCoMo, Allergan, Microsoft, SAP: Intellectual Property
September 09, 2011, 7:26 AM EDTBy Victoria Slind-Flor
(This is a daily report on global news about patents, trademarks, copyright and other intellectual property topics. Updates with SAP item in Copyright.)
Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- NTT DoCoMo Inc. said it got assurances from Samsung Electronics Co. that Japan’s largest phone operator will be able to continue selling the Galaxy tablet in the country amid a patent dispute with Apple Inc.
“Samsung told us there won’t be any problem for the sale” of the Galaxy devices, NTT President Ryuji Yamada told reporters in Tokyo yesterday.
Apple filed a suit against Samsung’s Galaxy tablet computer in Tokyo on Aug. 23, seeking compensation for alleged patent violations, Nam Ki-Yung, a Samsung spokesman in Seoul, said by telephone. The two companies’ patent dispute is now being waged across three continents as Apple claims the Galaxy devices copied its iPhone and iPad.
The first hearing over the latest dispute took place Sept. 7 in Tokyo District Court, according to Samsung’s Nam. Kyodo News reported that Apple wants 100 million yen ($1.3 million) in damages from Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung.
Nam and Takashi Takebayashi, an Apple spokesman in Japan’s capital, both declined to comment on the suit.
“The patent situation is different here from Europe,” Yamada said.
Samsung had about a 16 percent share in the tablet market in the first quarter, trailing the iPad’s 69 percent, according to Strategy Analytics.
Allergan Patents Valid, Infringed by Teva, Judge Decides
Allergan Inc.’s patents for the glaucoma treatment Lumigan are valid and are infringed by Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., a federal judge ruled yesterday.
Allergan, the maker of wrinkle-smoothing Botox, sued Teva’s Barr Laboratories unit in 2009 over the two patents and a non- jury trial was held in January and February, according to court papers. In dispute were patents 5,688,819 and 6,403,649.
The company won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December 2009 to sell a prescription drug using the same ingredients as Lumigen to make eyelashes thicker and darker. Allergan, based in Irvine, California, sells that product under the Latisse label.
“Allergan has met its burden” to prove Teva’s proposed generic Lumigan infringes, and the defendants “have not proven by clear and convincing evidence” that the patents are invalid,” wrote U.S. District Judge Sue L. Robinson in yesterday’s opinion released in Wilmington, Delaware.
Petach Tikva, Israel-based Teva, with $16.1 billion in sales last year, is the world’s largest generic drugmaker.
Denise Bradley, a U.S. spokeswoman for Teva, said the company has no comment on the ruling.
The newest of the patents expires in 2014, according to FDA records.
The case is Allergan Inc. v. Barr Laboratories Inc., 09CV333, U.S. District Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).
Microsoft, Acer Sign Patent License Pact for Tablets, Phones
Microsoft Corp. signed a patent-license deal with Acer Inc. covering the Taiwanese computer maker’s tablets and phones, which use Google Inc.’s Android platform.
The Redmond, Washington-based software maker disclosed the agreement in a press release.
Microsoft has entered into more than 700 licensing agreements since the company began its intellectual-property licensing program in December 2003.
Marshall Phelps joined Microsoft in 2003 after a 28-year career with International Business Machines Corp., where he was vice president for intellectual property and licensing. There he was credited with pioneering the patent monetization business.
Phelps helped Microsoft move toward viewing patents as an asset that could make money or be used as a bargaining chip with other companies.
Myhrvold Seeks U.S. Patents on Hurricane-Prevention Technology
Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer at Microsoft Corp., applied for six patents on a technology aimed at preventing hurricanes.
The six applications, published in the database of the U.S. patent and Trademark Office, cover what he calls a “water alteration structure and system having heat transfer conduit.”
The technology covered by the patent would lower the temperature of the ocean through the use of myriad floating devices with a downward conduit. As waves wash over the edges of the device, warmer surface water is pushed downward, lowering the water’s surface temperature, according to the patent applications.
Hurricanes originate over tropical or subtropical waters and lose much of their energy over colder waters, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The applications were filed between January 2008 and May 2009. In addition to Myhrvold, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates is also listed as an inventor, as are a number of scientists who consult with or are part of Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures invention company.
For more patent news, click here.
Trademark
Apple Demands Chinese Noodle Company Change Its Logo
Apple Inc. objected to a logo used by a Chinese company that produces noodles and flour, the GoChengDoo.com English- language news website reported.
Sichuan Fangguo Food Go Ltd. was accused of using conceptual elements in its logo that were taken from Cupertino, California-based Apple, according to GoChengDoo.com.
Zhao Yi, chief executive officer of the noodle company, said his company’s apple logo contains two Chinese characters and is a totally different shape from the California company’s, according to the website.
One of the reasons Apple objected, GoChengDoo.com reported, is that the noodle company’s trademark application covered 16 different product categories, including “notebook computers” and “electronic-game software,” which overlap some of the California company’s product categories.
For more trademark news, click here.
Copyright
Google Book-Scanning Lawsuit Is Dropped by French Publishers
Three French publishers dropped a 9.8 million-euro ($13.8 million) lawsuit against Google Inc. over books scanned by the search-engine company.
Editions Albin Michel SA, Editions Gallimard SA and Flammarion made the decision in order to resume negotiations to reach a deal on scanning copyright-protected works for Google’s digital library.
“Google suspended negotiations” when the suit was filed, Brice Amor, Gallimard’s legal director, said yesterday. The publishers dropped their claims “with the goal that the negotiations might resume.”
Google, based in Mountain View, California, has reached agreements with Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Livre and La Martiniere Groupe publishers to allow the scanning of out-of-print French books since losing a copyright dispute with the latter in 2009.
“This is a great news,” Philippe Colombet, Google Books’ French director, said in an e-mail. “We are keen to discuss constructively and work with publishers around the world to preserve and disseminate our important cultural treasures, and to find new business opportunities for authors and publishers.”
The decision was earlier reported on the website of trade publication Livres Hebdo. Calls to Albin Michel and Flammarion for comment weren’t immediately returned.
SAP’s Former Unit Criminally Charged for Oracle Downloads
SAP AG’s former TomorrowNow software-maintenance unit was criminally charged by the U.S. for downloading Oracle Inc. programs.
SAP, which shut the Bryan, Texas-based unit in 2008, reached an agreement with the Justice Department resolving the charges, Jim Dever, a SAP spokesman, said yesterday in a telephone interview. A confidential plea agreement was filed in court and isn’t yet public, he said, without disclosing any penalty.
“Any fine would be paid by SAP,” Dever said. “We look forward to what we believe is fair and final resolution.”
TomorrowNow was accused in 11 counts of using login credentials from Oracle customers to gain access to the company’s software and one count of criminal copyright infringement, according to a charging document filed yesterday in federal court in San Francisco by U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag.
Jack Gillund, a spokesman for Haag, declined to comment on whether there was a plea agreement with Walldorf, Germany-based SAP, the largest maker of business-management software.
“We are very pleased that the Department of Justice brought criminal charges against SAP for their widespread and systematic theft of Oracle’s intellectual property, to which SAP has repeatedly confessed,” Deborah Hellinger, a spokeswoman for Redwood City, California-based Oracle, said in an e-mailed statement.
A federal judge in Oakland, California, last week threw out a $1.3 billion jury verdict in Oracle’s civil lawsuit against SAP and said that the damages for the improper downloading should be no more than $272 million. If Oracle disagrees with the amount, SAP should get a new trial, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled Sept. 1.
The criminal case is U.S. v. TomorrowNow, 11-642, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
Denver Post’s Publisher Quits Contract with Righthaven
Media News Group Inc. said it’s dropping a contract with Las Vegas-based Righthaven LLC, a copyright-enforcement entity.
The Denver-based company, publisher of the Denver Post, said in a statement in that newspaper that it will let its 12- month contract with Righthaven lapse when it expires at the end of September.
Righthaven has brought numerous copyright-infringement cases on behalf of the Post and Stephens Media Inc.’s Las Vegas- Review Journal. Many of those suits have been stymied over court interpretations of whether Righthaven has standing to sue for infringement of the newspapers’ content.
For more copyright news, click here.
--With assistance from Heather Smith in Paris, Cristin Flanagan in New York, Karen Gullo in San Francisco, Dina Bass in Seattle, Susan Decker in Washington and Naoko Fujimura in Tokyo. Editor: Stephen Farr
To contact the reporter on this story: Victoria Slind-Flor in Oakland, California, at vslindflor@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net.
